Film Review: Second Act

After finding the Captain America review I did last week, I thought why not look and see if I could find anymore and it just so happens I did, so enjoy my take on Jennifer Lopez’s 2018 Rom Com Second Act

Starring:  Jennifer Lopez, Vanessa Hudgens, Leah Remini

Director: Peter Segal

Released: 2018

Genre: Romantic Comedy/ Drama

Box Office: $72,294,066

So a quick overview of the plot: This film is a comedy about a 40 year old women: Maya Vargas played by Jennifer Lopez who never went to college and is still dealing with the impact of this in her later life. She is then thrown into a new lavish lifestyle after her god-son reinvents her life online.

 So although this film is a comedy, there are some very emotional and hard hitting scenes. We follow the different struggles of Maya’s life as she goes through being pushed aside at her job, starting a new career and dealing with the judgement of the people around her. As well as having to keep up the charade that she has gone to Harvard, is part of the Peace Corps and is good friends with the Obamas. 

On top of all of this, she is dealing with a break up after her three year relationship ends. We also find out more about her and her family for example she’s lost her parents at a young age and was looked after by her grandmother until she passed away and as a result Maya was put into Foster care.

Throughout the film it is clear that she does not want children, this being the reason her relationship ended. We afterwards find out the reason she does not want children is because she had a child when she was 17 and had to give her up for adoption.

 Now plot twist! It turns out that her new boss is the man who adopted her daughter with his wife before his wife died. Maya now has a brand new life, her dream job and her daughter back in her life, but will it all come crashing down when the truth comes out?

 Continuing this spoiler alert! It does but in true Rom-Com style, things work out in the end but I have to admit I was slightly disappointed with the ending as it felt that after the truth came out the resolution was very rushed, it also rounded things up quick well but not completely so also left us with some questions. 

It’s quite disappointing that the film was not promoted more as it has potential to be a hit but not enough people are speaking about it. I mean it has a star studded cast of Jennifer Lopez, Vanessa Hudgens and Milo Ventimiglia. It has a lot of comedy whilst also discussing an issue that impacts many people who didn’t go to college. Overall I would give it 4 stars and would highly recommend.